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The Akron Beacon Journal loves them some George Will. Will's Washington Post columns appear regularly in the Beacon. Recently, the Beacon reprinted one of Will's columns on global warming that included his total distortion of research findings. Will, alleged to be an intellectual, often distorts the facts as he did in his screed, also reprinted by the Beacon, about how card-check (Employee Free Choice Act) would eliminate the secret ballot for workers organizing into a union. Something that EFCA clearly does not do.

Will is back in this morning's Beacon.....and this time he's spreading stuff already disproven yesterday in those, you know, detestable blogs. (Here and here) Quoting the odious Stuart Taylor from the rag, National Journal, Will joins Daddy Limbaugh in suggesting that Obama's Supreme Court choice, Sonia Sotomoyar, will rule on the basis of her racial and gender preferences.....

When Republicans first declared their National War Against Empathy From the Court (NWAEFC), I found it amazingly out of touch with basic common sense. But it's Republicans we're dealing with here.

Bitter conservatives instantly attacked Obama's mention of empathy as a quality he would be looking for in a new Supreme Court Justice. Of all things to attack, movement conservatives chose empathy. Now that Obama has selected Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, the unhinged wingnut chorus will no doubt escalate it's national war against the to-be-dreaded human quality....empathy.

A hypocritical nation, it would seem to me, would be a nation that goes through the symbolic motions, once a year, of remembering those who have given their lives in defense of their nation.....while the rest of the year it supports and defends the reckless endangering of the lives of those very soldiers.

The most responsible way to remember the service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice would be to guarantee that other service men and women were not placed in harm's way unless it was absolutely essential for the protection of our country. But that would take vigilance. That would mean more than a day off of work. That would require a more concerted effort than simply firing up the barbeque and cracking open a cold one.

First, let me state without reservation or qualification, that having Barack Obama as President is a far superior situation for America than if John McCain, with his full-throated, neo-conservative military and foreign policy ideology, were guiding the ship of state.

The Senate voted Wednesday, by a similar vote count of 90-6, to refuse to fund the closing of the American gulag at Guantanamo. The vote had to be interrupted several times to allow for Senators to go back to their offices and change their clothes, and in some cases, their Depends. Damnest thing. Some kind of co-ordinated outbreak of Senatorial pants pissing. Janitors, equipped with mops, were brought in unexpectedly. Terror color code raised, or lowered, to yellow. Messy.

Read the latest revelations about Donald Rumsfeld in an eye-opening GQ piece here.

Yesterday, some of the media focused on the Bible verse-laced cover letter pictures in Defense Department Daily Briefings sent out by Donald Rumsfeld's office during the Bush/Cheney wars of choice. While those are revealing and important in their own right, it's the role Rumsfeld played in the Katrina quagmire that got my attention. Here is an abbreviated portion....

As the country was being deceptively propagandized by the Bush administration during 2002 and early 2003, the focus of the propaganda boiled down to Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of dangerous weapons. WMD. The Bush administration pushed the WMD message repeatedly. Chemical and biological weapons......mobile weapons labs....smoking gun mushroom clouds.....nuclear program....it was a constant drumbeat.

But that wasn't the question our governmental leaders should have been asking....and then answering. Saddam's possession of dangerous weapons was not the basis upon which to decide whether or not to attack Iraq, a nation that posed no threat to the U.S., nor had ever attacked the U.S.

Funny coincidence about what I'm going to blog about here. I started rereading portions of the 9-11 Commission Report a couple of weeks ago after I discovered the real reason why Bush/Cheney ordered torture. All this time, I thought these draft dodging faux cowboys were trying to create an illusion that they were, you know, real rough and tough guys when they ordered torture. Bush/Cheney had not protected the country on 9-11, nor from the anthrax attacks.....the worst attacks ever in our history. Both those terrorist attacks happened on their watch. I just figured that they felt responsible, as well they should, and needed some made-for-teevee, warrior-like action to counter their utter failure.

Jebby Bush, Willard Romney and Eric "Can Do" Cantor sat around answering questions of constituents the other weekend explaining how they were "listening" to the American people, to their GOP constituents, as they strategized a plan of comeback for the party which only 21% of Americans now identify with.

That intention was quickly flushed down the commode when Mr. Limbaugh chastised those within the GOP who say they need to "listen." "Can Do" Cantor quickly corrected himself in an ugly self-loathing, "I am Rush's bitch", kind of moment.

The script writers for the teevee program "24" should be hired by our defense department as full time military planners. Eliminate the middle men. That way our great protector-leaders can skip over all the liberal whining horsesh*t over torture and get down to protecting us like real men should. Why bother with pansy-assed anti-torture appeasers and pacifists who insist on the rule of law. The rule of law is so pre-9-11. F*ck the rule of law. Are we going to rely on a goddamn piece of paper to protect us? Huh? Are we? What are we going to do? Hide behind it? Huh, you liberal sissies?

I, for one, can hardly wait for the gloves to come off permanently. I oftentimes feel like peeing in my pants, I get so scared about a boogyman terrorist hiding in my trashcan, and when I roll it back into the garage he's going to jump out screaming some stupid sh*t about Allah and blow my house up. So, I want those gloves to come off, and I want them to stay off. No more Mr. Niceguy like we've heard about from down in the Guantanomo-Carlton.

Whether it's an ex-college-cheerleader-turned-president prancing around in 2003 in a military costume from G.I. Joe's Dress-up Boutique, complete with a bulging dinghus protector cup,.....or a cowardly, draft dodging, ex-vice-president snarling yesterday about the unAmerican prospect of holding U.S. leaders accountable for war crimes....one thing is for sure.....movement-conservative, American leaders talk tough, try to scare us, and then, behave like cowards.

Republicans have formed the National Council for a New America(whatever that name means), in an attempt to connect with Americans again. The GOP has lost, badly, in the last two elections and now only 21% of Americans are willing to identify themselves as Republicans. Something constructive had to be undertaken by GOP leaders to at least try to salvage what looks like a sinking political Titantic.

So W's brother, Jebby, and Willard Romney and Eric Cantor convened a pizza party where they listened to regular Republicans, to then later consider what people said..... a bit of interactive soul searching, as it were....which would then, presumably, lead to a New America, or something.

All the Very Serious People in the Village, as well as all the usual-suspect Rush-Fox-Dick-Newtie types, have proceeded to build mountains out of the tiny molehill Obama gave them to work with in his answer on Wednesday night about torture. Obama seemed to agree with the 'for-torture' crowd when he said this....

Soon, the new revelations about the criminal gangsters of torture, aka the George W. Bush administration, will quietly, and with the whore-media leading the way, be swept under the rug. Of this, I have no doubt.

Our representative democracy will, as it did during the Ford administration, set yet another precendent in defense of lawlessness, which will guarantee another future rogue presidency. If the president orders something to be done, as Condi said recently, "by definition", that means it's not illegal. North Korea agrees.